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The Afterlife Is Real In New Trailer For Netflix's 'The Discovery'
By
Ben Yakas
Published Feb 22, 2017
Modified Feb 22, 2017
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By
Ben Yakas
Published Feb 22, 2017
Modified Feb 22, 2017
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Last month, Netflix released the first trailer for their big original movie, The Discovery, which seemed like the perfect thing to whet your craving for more The O.A.-style supernatural/spiritual thrillers about death, storytelling and the hereafter. The movie, which stars Jason Segel, Rooney Mara, Robert Redford, Jesse Plemons, and Riley Keough, will hit the streaming network on March 31st. And now you can get a better taste of what the movie, directed by Charlie McDowell, will be like in the official trailer below.
According to the official tagline, the film is takes place one year after the existence of the afterlife is scientifically verified, and "millions around the world have ended their own lives in order to 'get there.' A man and woman fall in love while coming to terms with their own tragic pasts and the true nature of the afterlife." Deadline has an even more detailed description of the plot:
Part Philip K. Dick, part Stanley Kubrick, with a dash of Christopher Nolan, The Discovery follows Will (Jason Segel), a neurosurgeon whose physicist father Dr. Harbor (Robert Redford) is even more renowned, radical and revolutionary in the medical field. Harbor has proved that the afterlife exists, and as such, the level of suicides explodes. Harbor is in hiding and has taken his research and his cult-like staff to a mansion estate on a New England island. Will ventures there to talk some sense into his father and along the way meets another one of his father’s followers, Isla (Rooney Mara), who Will takes a liking to. While at the compound, they learn of Dr. Harbor’s next shocking breakthrough: the ability to see the afterlife on a monitor through a dead person’s brainwaves after they cross over. Riley Keough plays one of Dr. Harbor’s acolytes whose parents have given up their lives for the other side.
Segel offered his own explanation for the sci-fi story as well, calling it a metaphor for a scenario where "you can’t really set the reset button...For me the movie was much more about pulling a geographic which we do here in life: Things aren’t going well here in New York, so I’m going to try moving to LA. That ought to solve it. But you find out you take yourself with you. You never really get a fresh start."
McDowell, who is the son of actor Malcolm McDowell and actress Mary Steenburgen (who also appears in this film), released his first film in 2014, the romantic sci-fi flick The One I Love starring Elisabeth Moss, Mark Duplass, Elisabeth Moss and Mark Duplass (not a typo, trust me on this one). Reviews for The Discovery, which premiered at Sundance last month, have been mixed-to-positive.
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movies
netflix
the discovery
trailer
Ben Yakas
Ben Yakas is a former Gothamist reporter.
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